Canon Digital IXUS 870 IS

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/digitalcameras/0,39030233,49299620,00.htm

Reviewed 5 November 2008

Reviewed by Joshua Goldman

Canon's Digital IXUS range features so many models now, deciphering what makes one better or different than another gets tricky. For what it's worth, the 10-megapixel IXUS 870 IS is the follow-up to the popular 860 IS, and what a worthy successor it is.

It's capable of producing truly excellent pictures for a camera of its size and it has excellent components for a £200 model, including a wide-angle lens and optical image stabilisation. There are a couple of weaknesses, but nothing that keeps it from being an excellent point-and-shoot camera.

On top of the two-tone body are the shutter button and surrounding zoom control, power and a mode switch. That mosaic-like design on the right is the speaker

Design
At 156g and measuring 94mm wide by 56mm high by 23mm deep, it'll fit more comfortably in a trouser or coat pocket than a shirt pocket, but it's by no means big. Compared with the 860 IS, the 870 has the latest version of Canon's image-processing engine, Digic 4, jumps from 8 megapixels to 10, and offers a few more scene modes. The 4x f2.8-5.8 28-112mm lens is a highlight of the camera; the wide angle is so useful to have on a camera this small, and it's a tad longer zoom than on the 860. It also records video using the H.264 codec instead of Motion JPEG.

Scene modes are plentiful -- 16 in all -- and include Stitch Assist for panoramas and Underwater for use with an optional casing. Shooting mode lets you go fully automatic with some minor adjustments, or drop it into Program AE, which gives you control for exposure compensation, white balance, tone and ISO.

Following the body's curve on the right from top to bottom are Print/Share and Playback buttons, a directional pad surrounded by a thumb dial, and then Menu and Display buttons

At first glance it looks like there's plenty going on with the controls, and there is, but operation remains reliably straightforward.The directional pad is pretty standard -- it's the thumb dial that adds interest here. In SCN mode, the dial is used for rifling through your options. It's also used for swapping between Auto and Program in Shooting mode and tone control in Video. It works well, but you can barely feel stops when spinning the dial, making it just a little too easy to switch out of whichever mode you want. The dial can be used for navigating Menu settings, too. Overall, we like the key design and wheel, but we can also see it confusing new users to the point of frustration.

The buttons have a pillowy, convex shape, which is not only attractive, but makes for unmistakable presses. The Print/Share button can be turned into a shortcut key to access one of nine shooting functions.

Performance
As for performance, the 870 IS is fractionally slower than the first-rate 860 IS. Time to first shot is 1.2 seconds and you can shoot again in 1.9 seconds. Shutter lag was great -- just 0.4 seconds in bright conditions and 0.8 in dim. The only marked decrease in speed is if you're using the flash: the shot-to-shot time extends to 3.2 seconds, which is a generally slow time and nearly a second longer than the 860. The typical burst speed is a respectable 1.4 frames per second. The 76mm (3-inch) Canon PureColor LCD II performed well in direct light and has a wide viewing angle.

More impressive than the SD880 IS's speed is the picture quality. Colours were always natural and vibrant. White balance was accurate and pictures showed good detail and sharpness at ISO 200 and below. Also, if you take a lot of landscape photos, note that the 870 IS is prone to fringing. Video is better than average considering it tops out at 640x480 pixels.

Image quality starts to noticeably degrade at ISO 400 showing detail loss, image softening and noise. There's so much noise at ISO 1,600 that even at small sizes they wouldn't be useful

Worth noting, too, is Canon's new Intelligent Contrast setting (i-Contrast) that theoretically just opens up shadow areas. It can be applied either automatically when you're shooting or after during playback. We recommend using it only in playback as more often than not it lightened the entire image, not just dark areas. In playback you can apply the effect in gradual levels as well and create a copy, whereas the camera decides on the level if you shoot with it on.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Typical shot-to-shot time (flash)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon Digital IXUS 860 IS

0.9 

2.4 

1.6 

0.7 

0.4 

Canon Digital IXUS 870 IS

1.2 

3.2 

1.9 

0.8 

0.4 

Kodak EasyShare M1033

1.7 

2.4 

1.7 

0.9 

0.4 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T70

1.5 

3 

1.3 

1.2 

0.4 

Olympus 1030 SW

1 

4.1 

2 

0.6 

0.5 

Conclusion
There's plenty more to talk about with the Canon Digital IXUS 870 IS, but it only reinforces how good a pocket camera it is. If the 860 IS was on your short list, the 870 is definitely worth the small additional investment.

Edited by Lori Grunin
Additional editing by Nick Hide